- Understand Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) framework and how it can be integrated your project’s ethical plan.
- Reflect on how ethical thinking can be built into your own AI project from the start and consider it an ongoing process.
Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI)
As your project starts to take shape and you begin to build your solution, it’s important to now reflect upon the ethical implications of your chosen solution. Being a responsible innovator is key.
According to Responsible AI UK,” Responsible Research and Innovation” means:
Doing research and innovation in a way that anticipates how it might affect people and the environment in the future, so we can gain the most benefit and avoid harm.
RRI is all about making sure that as we create new things, we’re doing it in a way that benefits everyone and avoids negative consequences.
The AREA framework, developed by Responsible AI UK, is a simple, practical guide to help you apply RRI principles. It stands for:
- Anticipate potential outcomes. What could happen?
- Reflect on our goals and methods. Why are we doing this?
- Engage with different people and communities. Who should be involved?
- Act on what we learn. What should we do?
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Anticipate: Thinking Ahead
Anticipating helps you spot potential problems early, so you can fix them before they happen. It means you imagine everything that could possibly happen with your project, both good and bad. It means you’re prepared for the unexpected.
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Reflect: Looking Inward
Reflection is about looking at your own motivations and choices to have a clear sense of why you’re doing what you’re doing. This helps ensure your project stays true to its original purpose and values and keeps you on the right track.
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Engage: Working together and listening to others
You’ve come up with an amazing idea, but is it what the community actually needs? It’s important to involve all stakeholders. You’ve looked at this earlier in the process, but it pays to continuously touch base with stakeholders. You’re creating a solution with (and not only for) the people who need it.
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Act: Taking an Ethical Approach
After you’ve Anticipated problems, Reflected on your goals, and Engaged with your community, the next step is to Act to make your solution better. This means you actively ask yourselves, “What are we going to do right now to make our solution more responsible?”
Example:
Imagine your team is creating a social media app where people can have interactions related to swapping clothes and sharing tips and organizing in-person events. Your app will make swapping feel more like a fun game and people will be motivated by seeing what others are doing.
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Anticipate:
You notice a risk — users might start competing or shaming others who don’t “swap perfectly.” -
Reflect:
You revisit your own goals and values for this project. You want to make a positive change in your community, and you decide to prioritize celebrating everyone’s efforts rather than criticizing them. -
Engage:
You visit a second-hand shop or center and talk to the people who work there to get expert advice. During these conversations, you learn that people are often confused about what can and can’t be recycled, and may feel embarrassed if they’re not doing it “right.” This feedback helps you understand what your app really needs. -
Act:
Based on what you Anticipated, Reflected, and Engaged with, your team decides to act by addressing the “shaming” concern. This includes designing a feature where users can only react with positive emojis, along with a system to flag and remove any negative or judgmental comments.
Keep in mind that when you build your project, you’re not just creating code; you’re creating something that can change people’s lives. Your actions should be guided by a goal to do good and help solve important problems in the world. Now, let’s apply the AREA principles to your own app project!
ACTIVITY 1
Responsible Research and Innovation
Estimated Time: 45 minutes
RRI is a broad and useful approach that can be applied to ensure multiple types of innovation projects, whether technological or not, have an ethical and responsible approach. For the specific project you’re working on now, it is crucial to go deeper and explore what the specific ethics of AI imply.
For this Activity, write your solution and the problem it solves. Choose at least 2 guiding questions for each RRI principle, discuss them with your Team and write your answers.
Keep your answers to the questions in mind as your continue your work on this project and beyond. Revisit the questions and see if your answers change at any point in the process.
Don’t forget about your Continuous AI Ethics Plan too. Check that you are sticking to your conscious plan to consider ethics throughout your project.
Reflection
Take a few moments to reflect on your work in this lesson. Consider the following questions:
Additional Resources
If you want to go deeper into discussions around ethics, check out this material created by University of Nottingham in collaboration with the Trustworthy Autonomous Systems Hub.
